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Preserves become ideology in a jar

Mary Pratt's painting of jelly jars, luminous with a spark of October light, appeared on Canada Post stamps this year. Pratt, one of Canada's foremost painters, had been in her kitchen when the cluster of jars on the counter, sent by her sister Barbara, caught her eye.

By Leslie ScrivenerFeature writer

Sun., Oct. 28, 2007

Mary Pratt's painting of jelly jars, luminous with a spark of October light, appeared on Canada Post stamps this year. Pratt, one of Canada's foremost painters, had been in her kitchen when the cluster of jars on the counter, sent by her sister Barbara, caught her eye.

"I'd taken them out of the box where I could look at them," she recalls, "then I went around doing my housework and the sun came at just the right moment and just the right way. It was too good to lose."

The painting is a simple one. "I thought not much of it, and then someone came over and made a great fuss," she says. "I thought it must have hit a nerve."

Like many Canadians, Pratt is a home canner – surprisingly, it's not a dying art – and, like many, she has given a lot of thought to the enterprise. It is more than simply putting up food from the harvest, or the back garden. Preserving is an ideology, a political act, a hands-on vote in support of local farmers and their produce. It is a way of withholding, even in small measures, from the vast corporatization of our food. And in its subtle and serene way, it is a link to the past.

Wayne Roberts, co-ordinator and sole employee of the Toronto Food Policy Council, says humans need to engage in preparing their own food. "People who said the purpose of food is to consume it made a mistake ... The species would not survive if people were not engaged in the labour of making and preserving food.

"The whole concept of the ideal life in which we do no labour has been proven erroneous. We're not burning all of the calories we consume, and we are not a happier species. It's resulted in mass obesity and mass dissatisfaction and under-utilization of the hormones that flow when we are working.

"Why is it when you know someone well, you move into the kitchen, not the living room?" he continues. "You involve them in doing some work. The reality of who we are as a species keeps bumping up against the commodity nature of food."

Are we hard-wired to preserve food? Probably not. But preserving food has long been a human habit, says Raymond Hames, professor of anthropology at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln.

"There is no known genetic mechanism to store ... and besides, we are descendents of tropical primates who do not store. We not descended from nut-storing rodents."

"My mother had a window counter that faced west, so when the setting sun came through her jelly, it was just magic," says Pratt from her home in St. John's. "Light would go to the dining room, two rooms away. She'd put the jelly in a crystal dish and it would send light through the room, a wonderful rainbow of light, perfect, like something almost holy."

Pratt sees biblical associations with home-preserved food. "I know this may sound silly, but anything I'm serious about, I sometimes equate with the Bible. I never paid much attention in Sunday school, but I found reading Northrop Frye and being with people like my husband (Jim Rosen), who's a scholar, I refer things back biblically."

She's not alone in this view. Sushil Saini, who's researching sustainable gastronomy at the University of Victoria, sees food preparation as an art form with a spiritual basis.

"Food is the most intimate interface humans have with the natural world," she says. "This profound relationship requires interaction more authentic than an anonymous purchase at the grocery store. People want relationships not mediated by commerce, but by creative, hands-on interaction. I believe that food satisfies a spiritual need in people, just as people get a satisfaction out of ritual."

Saini says she's seen a mild renaissance in home canning, at least on Vancouver Island, where notices for canning workshops are posted in local coffee shops.

"Those who can are not old-fashioned. They are a strong contingent who wish to have a more authentic and intimate relationship with food, their source of life."

No one needs to can food today, the way our forebears did. The markets and grocery stores have bushels of fresh vegetables. You don't have to wait until Easter for fresh asparagus; the imported stuff is available all winter.

But as chef Jamie Kennedy says, this year-round availability just isn't right.

"We're re-examining the whole philosophy of sourcing food from wherever and whatever time of year, in favour of observing the gifts of the seasons, " says Kennedy, whose wine bar on Church St. has a wall of shining preserves made in his kitchens. He buys 50 or more bushels of vegetables and then cans them, all for use in the restaurant.

"You also have the experience of anticipation – of asparagus, of fiddleheads, of wild leeks. Otherwise you have a dilution if asparagus is available all year long. "

Still, why do both men and women spend hours over bubbling canning pots with the arcane tools of the craft: old jars, seals and rings, magnets on dowels. Are they spurred by cultural memory, family tradition or homemaking impulse?

"I expect the answer is one similar to why a well-fed cat plays with a mouse," says Frances Burton, retired professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto. "It is gratifying though not necessary."

We retain cultural traditions and attitudes because they are satisfying, she says. "You can't recall if it was the image of the Pillsbury Doughboy that defined what it meant to be a warm, fuzzy mother, or was it your own grandmother and memories of when you were in the kitchen when you were a two-year old ... the feelings of warmth and security extend into food.

Burton also notes that home canning satisfies "internalized standards" for being a good, well-rounded homemaker.

Many canners cite creative expression, too. At home in Elora earlier this month, author and "culinary activist" Anita Stewart had a sink full of tomatoes, brought over by a neighbour, that she will make into green tomato pickle. She puts up food most of the year, for political reasons – to help keep local growers in business – and personal ones: "It's part of who I am. When creating these things for winter, it's another way of speaking."

Judi Kingry, marketing manager of canning-supplies company Bernardin Ltd. in Oakville, has been putting up preserves since her 4-H days in Kansas. "It's not a dying art in any sense among people who have gardens and people who are interested in what they eat," she says, adding that Bernardin's sales have held steady over the years.

Canning appeals to those who want to know the source of their food, control its sugar and salt content, avoid pesticides, and take advantage of farmers' markets, she says. "It becomes almost a community event. You get to know the farmer who grew the products, you meet other people, and it gives people a connection to food, which they do more now than even a decade ago."

The federal and provincial governments once encouraged canning, providing information on safe practices, says Toronto food historian Liz Driver. She reads from a 1947 British Columbia canning booklet that observed, "the `squirrel' instinct to store up for the winter is strong and is to be encouraged in the Canadian housewife."

But now, says Driver, there are no unbiased sources to turn to. "We only have companies pushing their (canning) systems. There's no one acting on behalf of the consumer."

Interest in home preserves began plummeting in the 1950s, she notes. Women entered the workforce, and with the Depression and the war years behind them, families could afford prepared heat-and-eat meals, while home freezers provided an efficient, virtually labour-free means of storing food.

Tamara Sharp, a graduate student focusing on food and culture at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, believes the continued practice of canning is attributable to "topophilia," or "love of place."

The term was coined by American geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, but in Sharp's reading of it, topophilia is the emotional connection people have with their families or their own history.

She makes strawberry and raspberry jam, she says, because of "memories of washing, sorting and hulling the fruits with my grandmother and mother." She still uses her grandmother's bowl to crush the berries.

It brings back "the feeling of belonging to the family group, the sense of history and confidence in the future as we carried out these tasks year after year, the pride we took in our work, and especially the camaraderie.

"Of course," she adds, "the jams really do taste exactly like they did when I was a child."

When Mary Pratt saw jars of jelly on her counter, shot through with October light, she created a painting that has reappeared on stamps

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